Real impact of high dollar donations

Like any other special category, a strong development candidate will have impact on admissions. But we are probably talking about single-digit number of admits per year, and these schools get thousands of applications from all around the world. And there are a lot of centi-millionaires and billionaires. A lot.

So as @Charger78 said, unless you are in the 7 or 8 figure discussion–and these development officers know who you are without checking your BS giving history–don’t worry about it.

Put it this way: If you think they need to check on your giving history in order for you to get the benefit, you aren’t giving enough for it to matter. And if you are thinking about some sort of linear optimization of the right amount of giving in order to derive the maximum admission benefit, you aren’t giving enough either. Schools will move the needle for transformational (their favorite word) support.

$200k–even per annum–is a wonderful gift and they will be highly appreciative, but it’s barely noticeable in the context of the schools you are most likely thinking about. Take a school like Stanford–your example–they are generating well over a billion dollars EACH year from their existing endowment just based on conservative assumptions about investment returns.